


Lieder ohne Worte

by HopeForTheWitch



Series: Lieder [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst, Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26157631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeForTheWitch/pseuds/HopeForTheWitch
Summary: Sirius felt cold to the bone and Harry was warm in his purity; a small flame in an otherwise perpetually dark and empty room.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Harry Potter, Sirius Black/Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Sirius Black/Tom Riddle
Series: Lieder [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1899496
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	Lieder ohne Worte

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is a companion piece to Lullabies in Parseltongue, with scenes woven together that I didn't feel fit LIP. Do you need to have read that to understand this? Yes, absolutely! You'll have no idea what's going on otherwise. 
> 
> Many thanks to [CynthiaReine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynthiaReine) once more for beta'ing this. ^^

* * *

####  **Lieder ohne Worte**

* * *

Sirius felt cold to the bone and Harry was warm in his purity; a small flame in an otherwise perpetually dark and empty room. 

* * *

“C’mon, let me do it.”

Marvolo glanced at him warily then looked down at where he held a pair of scissors in shaking hands. He grimaced and handed them over and Sirius carefully didn’t sigh with relief. The last thing they needed was Marvolo bleeding out on their bathroom floor because the tremors in his hands didn’t want to let up today.

The rays of morning sun coming through the small high-up window in the bathroom put emphasis on the remnants of a few rough nights. It lit up Marvolo’s otherwise dark irises, creating a lighter brown with only the slightest hint of crimson, his eyes not quite as red as Voldemort’s had been, his soul not quite as torn as Voldemort’s had been.

Sirius liked Marvolo’s eyes. 

They were pretty.

Marvolo thought they were mundane, one more item on a list of other things to hate about himself, but to Sirius they were a reminder that the man beside him was not Voldemort. It reminded him that Marvolo was a physical representation of what it meant to have your life split in two, how devastating it was to have a Before and After. 

Marvolo didn’t agree, but then, they didn’t agree on a lot of things.

“We could just take you to a hairdresser.”

“No, thank you,” Marvolo said.

Sirius put the scissors down on the little ledge underneath the bathroom mirror. “We could pay extra for them to send someone up.”

“No, Sirius,” Marvolo said firmly, sounding as irritable as he looked in that moment. He tugged on his dark wavy hair, as if that would somehow fix his haircut. It had grown out quite a bit since he initially had his head shaved after release, not because he wanted to but because there had not been any other way to deal with the matted hair; Harry sure had tried.

“Yes, Sirius,” Sirius said.

Marvolo’s expression didn’t change, lips turned downward and eyes weary. “No.”

“I can obliviate whoever they send.”

That suggestion gave Marvolo pause.

* * *

Sirius liked loose leaf tea because it didn’t come in a teabag.

St. Mungo’s psych-ward stored their teabags in large clear containers, not bothering to separate by taste, and as a result it produced the same stale tea no matter the bag you picked. 

Sirius liked his tea steaming hot because it wasn’t lukewarm.

St. Mungo’s psych-ward served their patients lukewarm tea because past experience told them patients should not be trusted with steaming beverages, whether that be coffee or tea.

Sirius went into St. Mungo’s one person and came out another, and they told him it was normal. Sometimes he wondered how much of himself was still in Azkaban, whether there’d be a selkie’s skin hiding under the cot in his old cell.

Sometimes he wondered if he ever left at all.

But then sometimes Marvolo would laugh at something silly, and his mind would stop wondering for a moment, and sometimes it was the alcohol sitting warm and comfortable in his stomach that made the thoughts retreat to the back of his mind for a moment.

They were but moments.

Sirius dipped in and out of them like a dolphin did the sea. “Between them there is nothing,” he said as he thought about it. “I don’t know where I go.”

His case worker scribbled furiously in her notebook, nodding along, two bright spots of ink on her inner arm. Sirius found himself staring at them. “And do you lose time when this happens?”

“Yes.”

“And now, have you noticed a change since we switched potions?”

Sirius nodded slowly. “I feel more clear headed now.” He felt like he should be exhausted, being so _aware_ all the time, and it felt strange that he wasn’t, at least not because of that. “I can’t sleep, though.”

“You can’t sleep?”

“No.”

“Why is that?”

Sirius shrugged. “I can’t get comfortable.”

“I see.” Stephanie wrote down some more. “You switched—when? Two weeks ago?”

“I think so, yes.” 

“Alright, so if it doesn’t change for the better next week, I’ll bring it up with your mind healer to see if there’s alternatives. It’s nice that you feel clear-headed now, but if they cause you to lose sleep—”

“It’s not that bad,” Sirius said quickly, because he _liked_ being clear-headed.

“Are you sure?” Stephanie looked concerned.

He nodded. “Yeah, it’s just getting used to it, right? It’ll go away.”

* * *

For two long months they each slept on a sofa at Grimmauld Place. 

It was easier, they told themselves. What was the point of sleeping in bedrooms too big and too empty when they lived downstairs anyway? The kitchen was closer, there was a half bathroom on the first floor and if they wanted a shower, well, there was a perfectly functional bathroom close to the stairs on the second floor.

It was only while they got Sirius’ house ready for multiple people to live in, they told themselves. What was the point of cleaning up the place if they were just going to leave soon anyway? Their energy, little they had, was better spent elsewhere, like changing the floors from a dark mahogany to a much lighter grey oak and repainting the bedrooms.

Then they moved, two weeks before Harry came home from his fourth year, and suddenly there were no more excuses.

* * *

Having Harry around was as much a blessing as it was a curse. Sirius hid the bottles of beer and wine in a cooling box in the shed, except of course Harry found their stash anyway. He didn’t feel like going all the way up to the attic, so he ended up giving up on hiding them altogether and put them back in their fridge.

Marvolo watched all this from one of two armchairs near the window in the living room. They were made of tough leather and heavy wood and they were highly uncomfortable, yet the discomfort they caused distracted Sirius from his inability to find a good position for his legs that didn’t make him want to shake them out. He didn’t know why Marvolo preferred his own chair from hell to the perfectly nice sofas they had.

There were things they spoke about.

There were a lot more things they didn’t.

Bottles back in place, Sirius slapped a cushion into shape then sat down in his chair, watching Harry mess around in the garden outside. He was taking care of weeds, from what Sirius saw, and he seemed content to do it. 

Marvolo opened his newspaper.

Sirius fidgeted with the bulky beads that pinned the leather down, eyes following Harry around as he went around pulling weeds from between tiles. “Should we pay him?” he mused out loud.

“If you want him to stop, go ahead.”

Sirius turned to face Marvolo, but he was hidden behind the paper. “Why would he stop?”

Marvolo sighed and turned a page. “Because,” he said slowly, “it’ll turn into a chore. Nobody likes chores.”

“It’d turn into a job,” Sirius said, “he could earn some money.”

“Nobody likes jobs either. Besides, he has enough in his vault.”

“I liked my job.”

“Please.” Marvolo lowered the paper and gave him a hard stare. “You’ve never worked a day in your _life_. You stumbled into Dumbledore’s arms fresh out of Hogwarts.”

“I told you, I was an auror.”

“Auror, unemployed, I hear no difference.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Fine, I like the _idea_ of a job.”

Marvolo made a face. “Yes, have fun with that.” He disappeared behind his paper again. “I wouldn’t pay him.”

“I’m his godfather.”

“So?”

“So it doesn’t _matter_ how much he has in his vault.”

“Fine, then pay him.”

“Yeah, but what if he _does_ stop?”

Marvolo turned another page. Loudly.

“And I also don’t want him to get bored.”

“Sirius, please. I’m done with this conversation. Pay him or don’t.”

Marvolo couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to not trust yourself; he had trust in spades, oozing confidence wherever he went except when he lost himself. He couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to doubt your decisions, to get stuck between two choices, immobilized with fear.

Because Sirius—he’s not unaware, he knew he was reckless. He knew he had a problem. 

* * *

Sirius thought they were a lot like water and ice together; for all that they were the same, they had many differences as well. Marvolo was like icy speleothems that shattered under a well-aimed kick, like a thin layer of ice on a lake in winter. But sometimes he was nothing more than a beautiful ice sculpture, in the same way that Sirius was nothing more than a canal; given shape by men, admired for a moment and then forgotten about.

They fit together in as many ways as they didn’t, their rough edges chafing. Where Marvolo was still struggling trying to get back on his feet after only six months outside, Sirius felt refreshed and alive. He thought he would like to be wild and free like fire instead of water.

* * *

Sometimes Sirius woke up crying, only just loud enough to cover the screams still ringing in his ears, and he couldn’t remember why.

* * *

Sometimes Harry crawled into bed with them and cried with him, silent and helpless and utterly unable to put that into words, Marvolo curled securely around them both.

* * *

Sometimes Sirius forgot life used to revolve around more people than just his household, but what was left of his world was small; it only fit two other people.

* * *

September came, October came, and then it was November’s turn, and Sirius found that he didn’t wish to remember his current age, and so he let his birthday come to pass without much fanfare. They ate at the pub in the village, crepes with all sorts of strange fillings because the bartender and his wife were experimenting.

There was an age gap there that never failed to interest him, because he couldn’t phantom the idea of any such a gap of understanding between partners. Surely she had seen more of life than he? She certainly had had more time.

It made him think of the gaps he’d have with any given partner, all the things he missed out on despite his age, the experiences he never got to have. He tried not to wallow too long, and that too became easier, but at times it was hard not to get stuck on these things.

* * *

December came early and Christmas came not fast enough. 

Sirius watched from the kitchen as Marvolo greeted Harry in parseltongue, all three with snow in their dark hair. He recognized _hello_ and _are you fed?_ and _yes_ , because parseltongue was weird and fascinating and both parselmouths enjoyed talking about it. Apparently snakes had no need to ask how another was doing beyond whether they’d recently eaten or not, or inquiring about injuries. Sirius thought it was hilarious, but they had gotten _so offended_ when he’d laughed. He ended up sharing it with the Weasley boy in a series of letters, and at least _he_ understood perfectly.

Harry was taller again, still shorter than Sirius but he’d catch up to Marvolo’s height soon enough, perhaps in a year. A lot could be said about the Dursleys, and Sirius had said a lot about them, but at least they fed him properly.

Sirius came up behind Harry, startling him into a laugh as he wound his arms around his godson’s waist. He was happy to see he was still over a head taller than Harry. Marvolo smirked at them, but Sirius paid him no heed, dropping a content kiss on the crown of the boy’s head, happy to have him home with them.

“He was just telling me about his friends,” Marvolo said before taking a sip of his disgusting lukewarm tea, a smear of darkened skin reaching his jawbone and going around his left ear, hidden mostly behind soft brown curls and a high collar.

“What about his friends?” Sirius let go of Harry and stepped around him into the kitchen, sitting atop the kitchen table while Harry started on his hunt for his own tea or something.

“I’m not going to be the one telling you,” Marvolo said.

Sirius snorted at the tone. “Harry?” he prompted.

“Went on date,” Harry said, half buried in one of the cabinets. He made a triumphant little noise and came back out holding a box of cereal instead of the tea tin Sirius had expected to see, hand already disappearing inside the box.

“Put that back,” Sirius said mildly.

Harry deftly stepped out of reach. “Went bad, got into a fight.” He shrugged and took his hand out. The plastic crinkled loudly. “Now friends again.”

“Fascinating, don’t you think?” Marvolo said and he snatched the box away with a frown and handed it to Sirius.

“Marvolo!” Harry complained.

“No, it’s too close to dinner.”

Harry put the whole handful in his mouth then started chewing as if to prove a point.

“Yeah, have fun with that,” Sirius told him. He put the box down next to him and leaned back on his arms. “So are your friends still okay with staying over?”

Harry stopped chewing and shrugged.

Marvolo slapped Sirius’ thigh. “Don’t put your feet on the table, we eat here.”

Sirius grabbed his wrist. “Gotta be faster,” he grinned playfully. He caught Marvolo’s other wrist as well and then he was pushed down onto the table. “Goddamnit, Marv,” he laughed in surprise. “My legs.”

Marvolo let up with a chuckle. “Serves you right.”

Harry rolled his eyes then resumed his munching.

* * *

They had been dancing around it for quite some time now, and it was alright in the middle of the night, with screams and laughter in their ears in equal measure. It was alright to seek comfort from the other, to fuck until there was only _them_ , sweat and moans and tears.

For all that he was a Slytherin, Marvolo was bolder than Sirius, trying to do away with their lines until he threw all attempts at subtlety out the window. “Oh, look, mistletoe,” he deadpanned, holding the branch above them as he sat himself down on the arm of Sirius’ chair. 

Sirius stared at it blindly, then laughed softly, nervous in a way he couldn’t ever remember being about any of their previous ones—although those belonged firmly in the We Do Not Talk About That category—but he had no brain cells left to worry about his sudden lack of confidence. Not when Marvolo pressed his lips to Sirius’ hair first, then moved ever so slowly to his cheek and finally captured his mouth.

Sirius held his breath, then let it go in a rush as he gave into the kiss, his chest full of want. It was a soft and lazy meeting of lips, an unhurried exploration rather than the race it sometimes was late at night.

“Fuck,” one of them whispered and Sirius tasted salt and grief even as the kiss deepened and Marvolo slid from the armrest and straddled his lap in one swift move, his fists in Sirius’ shirt. He leaned further back until the chair fully supported his weight, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.

Marvolo was thin but as Sirius’ hands wandered, he found evidence of the exercise the man put himself through. He hummed appreciatively and Marvolo chuckled and they broke apart. Sirius watched him through half-lidded eyes, his own most likely mirroring the red-rimmed ones staring right back at him, pupils blown wide.

Sirius’ hand dropped from the back of Marvolo’s head to his neck, playing with the curls he felt at the nape. And then he ruined the strange tension between them, “I think the last kiss I had that was this wet was with a woman.” It was a lie, but it worked.

Marvolo exhaled lightly at that, coming in to steal another kiss and then another one, expressing the greed that Sirius felt lurking in his chest.

He had forgotten what it felt like to want someone _physically_. He tried to fit that with who he was now, tried to paint it onto the canvas of his current identity, and he found that he had to relearn _what_ he wanted as well as _how_. It used to come so easily to him, a clear path, clear lists of his likes and dislikes, but he didn’t know what was left of those lists when Azkaban had burned through a third of his life so thoroughly.

“I don’t know what we’re doing,” Sirius murmured into the shared pocket of air between them.

He thought if they stopped now, they could walk away; they could reasonably turn their backs on this moment of shared understanding in the daylight, stone cold sober too. But Sirius knew his life as nothing _but_ a series of moments, a series of seconds of things making perfect sense right then and there, and Marvolo’s mouth was red and inviting and Sirius was _weak_.

* * *

“My parents are dentists,” Hermione said lightly, daintily cutting off a piece of her steak.

Marvolo went white, then green. “Muggle dentists,” he specified.

Hermione’s eyes narrowed. “Why, yes, of course. I’m a Muggleborn, after all.”

“Of course,” Marvolo echoed faintly.

Suddenly Hermione’s expression cleared, and that would’ve been it, except then she gave him a look of _sympathy_ , and Sirius nearly choked on his mouthful of chicory, torn between laughter and trying to stop Marvolo from attempting to glare the girl to death. “I forgot you’re from a different era.”

Sirius swallowed with difficulty. “Era,” he said, coughing the last bits away. “Era,” he repeated, and then he threw his head back and laughed. “She basically called you a caveman.”

“I did not!” Hermione shrieked. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Harry hissed something in parseltongue, and it must’ve been an entire sentence because Sirius couldn’t pick out a single thing and he was usually pretty good at recognizing lone words. “No parseltongue at the dinner table,” Sirius reminded both parselmouths before they could start an entire conversation.

Marvolo looked chagrined. “He tried to make a joke.”

“Okay,” Sirius said slowly. “What was the joke?”

“I ask how he keep warm without fire,” Harry grinned, looking smug. Then it was his turn to give Marvolo an unhappy look. “Not funny in English.”

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t funny in parseltongue either,” Marvolo casually said as he shredded a paper napkin above his empty plate.

* * *

The ring was gaudy, but Marvolo wasn’t looking at it or Sirius. Instead, he fastened the clasp at the back of Sirius’ neck, then leaned back to inspect the chain. “It’ll do,” he muttered.

Sirius looked down. “Is there a story here, or did you just think it’s pretty?”

Marvolo snorted. “Hardly.” He seemed uncomfortable. “It’s an heirloom. I don’t wish to see it rot away in a drawer, but I... it’ll do,” he repeated softly. His eyes were saying things but Sirius didn’t understand, because while they’d gotten to know each other pretty damn well this past year, Marvolo was tight-lipped about the life he had before Dumbledore so callously—accidentally—pulled him forward in time.

“Thank you,” Sirius said, and the ring suddenly felt a lot heavier on his chest, but he would wear it, proudly.

* * *

“I know you kissed him,” Sirius said later, frowning a little. “Why would you do that?”

Marvolo looked at him askance. “Why wouldn’t I, when he put himself on offer so prettily?”

Sirius stepped into the V of his legs, watching his own hands on top of Marvolo’s thighs while he sought for words to express himself. When he looked up, still without words, Marvolo’s lips were curled up into a teasing, knowing smile.

* * *

And yet…

* * *

“He’s sleeping,” Sirius whispered. “Marv!” he hissed.

“He’ll stay that way if you just _shut_ up,” Marvolo said helpfully.

“What’s he even doing here?” Sirius asked. “I thought he went back to sleeping in his own bed.” Plastered to his back and laying in the last rays of the Summer evening, Harry stirred, face marred by a frown even in sleep. Sirius wondered what he was dreaming of that made him look that way.

Marvolo sighed, rolled over onto his back. “Really?” he asked, squinting a little at the ceiling. “You want to have this conversation _now_?”

 _This conversation_ was not why he’d come to Marvolo’s room. In fact, he really didn’t want to have _this conversation_ at all, least of all when he was just about to have his cock sucked, but Harry was right there and if there ever was a light sleeper, _well_. “It’s not like we’ve ever talked about this before,” he muttered, chagrined. 

There were too many things that went unsaid in their house; this shouldn’t be one of them.

Marvolo gave him an annoyed look as he sat up. “What’s there to talk about?”

“He’s my—”

“Godson, yes, Black, I’m aware. We’ve been—”

“Keep it down,” Sirius hissed once more.

“—over this.” Marvolo rolled his eyes. “It’s not like he’s never heard _or_ seen us before.”

* * *

And yet, when it came down to it, Sirius was no better.

* * *

Harry was easy to love.

Sirius couldn’t help but cling to the kind of innocence Harry represented, _untainted_ , couldn't help but want to grab it with both hands and breathe that love in like fresh air, much like he couldn’t help but crush it between his careless hands until there wasn’t any left, until Harry, too, was lost to that inevitable darkness.

Harry tasted sweet, and he stilled in Sirius’ arms. “Sirius?” he whispered.

Sirius couldn’t help lean in once more, either. “Yeah,” he said, his attention too frayed to know what question he was being asked. Had Harry asked anything? He didn’t think so. “It’s fine,” he added needlessly.

“I know that,” the boy said, and he sounded so young that Sirius’ heart twisted. 

There was the knowledge, usually lost to the wisps of smoke or the pressing haze of alcohol, that wanting his godson was wrong for more reasons than just having known James. Wrong for reasons beyond having been _brothers_ in a time when his grass was still green, and his sky was still clear and blue, and his future was still bright and promising and _there_.

He remembered now, though.

He was thirty?

Thirty-five.

No.

Merlin, he was thirty—thirty- _something_ , alright.

“Sweetheart,” he said, stealing another kiss, just one more, just two more, until he forgot what he was thinking, until any wrongdoings had vaporized and it was just them in their own little snowglobe. When he pulled back, the boy was grinning from ear to ear and Sirius couldn’t help but smile.

* * *

_In a land far away, two boys lay in restless sleep. They lay curled around a bright little flame, sharing their pain as well as their bed, sharing their loss. Sharing the hope that their little flame would be everlasting..._

_But._

~fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow this universe gave me Sirius/Harry/Marvolo and I'm obsessed lol. 
> 
> LOW and LIP were almost exclusively written while listening to _Maman_ by **Louane** [(link)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC_ffV--tcE). Maybe that’s why this universe won’t leave me alone, because I can’t stop listening to it.


End file.
